Posted on: 11:43 Tue, 22 Mar 2016



The family of a 20-year-old young
lady, Joan Egemba, have been
thrown into mourning after their
daughter was stabbed and
strangled by some suspected rapists
in the Ijebu Igbo area of Ogun
State.

Joan, who bagged a National
Diploma (ND) in Accountancy from
the Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, Ogun
State, enrolled for the 2016 Unified
Tertiary Matriculation
Examination.

She left her home in Sango-Ota at
12noon on Thursday, March 3, for
the National Open University of
Nigeria centre in Awa Ijebu, where
she was posted to sit for the exam
the following day.

It was learnt that on Thursday
evening, she was abducted at the
Ijebu Oru Junction – a few distance
away from the centre – by persons
suspected to be r*pists.

Her corpse was found in a bush at
the back of a secondary school in
Ijebu Igbo with cuts in her thighs.
Sources say the briefs that Joan
wore were torn, suggesting that her
assailants were indeed r*pists.

Her dad, Emmanuel Egemba, said
she called him on the telephone on
getting to the centre, informing him
that the security guard attached to
the centre turned down her request
to pass the night on the premises.

He told Punch: “On that
Thursday, she left home around
12.30pm, but the bus she boarded
at Sango to the centre left around
2pm.

She called at 5.30pm that she had
arrived there, but the security
man at the centre did not open the
gate for her and others to pass the
night on the premises. I told her
to find a place in the area till the
following day when she would sit
for the exam.

“Around 7pm, I called her again
and she said the security man had
opened the gate for them. One
hour after, I called again but she
did not pick her calls. She was
supposed to sit for the exam at
6.30am on Friday.

I called her around 12pm on
Friday, her phone was switched
off. As early as 4am on Saturday, I
went to the centre to verify
whether she sat for the exam or
not. I met the security man and he
directed me to the JAMB office in
Abeokuta.

He denied that he allowed my
daughter into the school
compound to pass the night.

“It was a woman that told us that
a girl was kidnapped at Oru
Junction and taken towards Ijebu
Igbo. We later discovered her
corpse on Wednesday, March 9. If
the candidates were allowed to
sleep inside the school, this
incident would not have
happened.”

Emmanuel, a retired Assistant
Superintendent of Nigerian
Customs, said the loss of his
daughter was hard to bear, but the
family had taken solace in God.

“I learnt it was r*pists that killed
her. Her body was not mutilated,
but she had cuts in the mouth and
thighs. Her clothes and briefs were
torn and she had bruises in the
back.

“We prayed before she left home
on that day. While we were praying
this morning (Monday) I looked at
where she used to sit and it was
vacant,” the father said, feeling
sad.

He said the deceased’s mother, Mrs.
Chimemo Egemba, was too
distraught and could not speak.

A neigbour, who identified himself
as Wale, said the DPO in Awa Ijebu
did not act promptly when the case
was reported and called for
comprehensive investigation to
unravel Joan’s killers.

He said, “I followed Emmanuel to
the police station on Wednesday,
four days after he reported the
case, and I asked the DPO if he had
visited the school. He said no. He
should have gone to the centre
instantly to investigate. He is not fit
to be a policeman.

“It was at a building beside the
NOUN centre that we got the
information that the girl was
abducted. We traced her to Ijebu
Igbo with her picture. At a motor
park there, we showed the picture
to a man who told us her corpse
was dumped in a bush at the back
of a school.

“I think she struggled with her
abductors while they attempted to
rape her. I think they strangled her
when they did not succeed in
raping her. We want those that
perpetrate this act to be fished out
and brought to book.”

Wale said a police officer at the
Ijebu Igbo division told him that
they were overwhelmed by the
spate of crime in the community,
adding that many policemen had
influenced their transfers from
Ijebu Igbo to other stations.

Ogun state police command say
they will get the culprits, they are
on top of the situation.